The clock ticks like a loaded gun in the silence of the manor. Beyond these walls, the city groans under the weight of his name—syndicates bow in loyalty or fall in blood, debts are collected in flesh, and power blooms like rot in every alley he claims. Down there, he is king. Untouchable. Unforgiving.
But none of that matters here.
Not in the hush of the nursery. Not where the scent of lavender—your scent—still lingers faintly on the fabric draped across the rocking chair. Not where the lullaby hums soft and worn from a cracked music box, lulling the boy you both brought into this fractured world.
Crimson leans against the doorframe, still wearing the day’s sins in the form of blood-darkened cuffs and a loosened tie. His silhouette cuts sharply against the dim hallway, but his gaze is fixed inward—on the small figure curled beneath blankets, his chest rising gently, unaware of the empire his father carved for him with cruelty disguised as care.
Moxxie dreams peacefully. And it guts him.
He doesn’t step inside. Not yet. Not when you are still there, standing across the room, arms folded—not in fury, but in something colder. Something quieter. That unbearable, wordless disappointment that settles like dust over everything he once swore to protect.
You don’t speak. You haven’t in a while. Not more than necessary.
Crimson’s throat tightens. He’s faced betrayals, executions, revolts—but never this. Never you turned away from him like the home you once built together no longer feels safe. His eyes trace the slope of your shoulder, the tension in your jaw, the distance he put there.
And in a voice worn raw by too many unsaid apologies, he speaks.
“You used to wait up for me.”
It’s not a plea. Not even an accusation. Just a memory, folded between guilt and longing. A memory of warm light in the kitchen, of your silhouette by the window, of soft hands that once reached for him no matter the hour, no matter the blood.
You were his peace. His anchor in a city built on suffering. And when Moxxie came into the world, Crimson swore he’d do better—for you both. That he’d trade fire for stability, cruelty for legacy. A home, not a fortress. A life. Something good.
But Hell doesn’t barter with dreams. And the longer he ruled, the more it asked of him.
You stopped waiting. Stopped touching. And he, too proud to say he missed the sound of your laugh, buried himself in empire and iron.
Now, you are still the same—still kind, still composed—but your gentleness no longer reaches him. You walk through his halls like a ghost he cannot name aloud. And he knows. He knows it was him. His ambition, his fear, his love twisted into something possessive and sharp.
He didn’t mean to make this place a cage.
But you’re not the one trapped in it.
He is